The present invention relates to checkout systems and, more particularly, to a checkout counter having means mounted in the checkout counter for processing any number of the same type of merchandise items with one scanning operation. In order to increase the speed of the checkout operation, optical scanning devices have been incorporated into the checkout counters for reading data encoded indicia on labels affixed to the purchased merchandise items. Movement of the merchandise items across the scanning device results in the scanning device reading the encoded indicia labels. Where a number of the same merchandise items are being checked out, each merchandise item has to be moved across the scanning device in order to insert the merchandise item identification code into the processing system enabling the processing system to generate the price of the item. It has been found that this type of checkout procedure represents a significant portion of the total time it takes to check out the purchases of a customer. In order to overcome this problem, prior checkout systems have required the operator to actuate a repeat key on the keyboard of the data terminal associated with the checkout operation for each item that is being repeated or the operator had to move to a data terminal device and enter the number of items purchased after which the operator turned around and scanned the item. It has been found that where a large number of the same items were purchased, no significant reduction in the checkout time was obtained using these checkout routines.